Advances in various industries have been largely made possible by the decreasing feature size and increasing density of various electronic components in integrated circuits. To efficiently utilize space, circuit designers have used technologies such as three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs) and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate circuits (CoWoS, also called 2.5D ICs). With these technologies, dies are stacked, e.g., with one on top of another die, and/or connected to package substrates using through-silicon vias (TSVs), wire-bonding, and/or flip-chip bonding.
Dies are commonly tested in association with various aspects of die manufacturing. For example, dies may be tested to determine which dies are “bad” dies that should be excluded from subsequent processing. Dies may be tested by testing the electrical characteristics (e.g., resistance, capacitance, leakage, and/or frequency) of the integrated circuits on the dies. In some testing approaches, a test equipment module, which may be automated and referred to as an automated test equipment (ATE) module, is used to apply a voltage to a first pad of a device under test (DUT), which may be a semiconductor device. A probe card containing a circuit board may be used to connect the ATE and the DUT, e.g., using contacts that mate with corresponding contacts of the ATE and DUT, and metallic probes or needles that engage contacts of the DUT. Through the application of a voltage, a current is achieved between the first pad and a second pad of the DUT which is also connected to the ATE module through the probe card, and the current can be measured. Alternatively, a current can be applied, and a voltage drop can be measured. Regardless of the specific test approach, data that is thus collected by the ATE can be used to determine electrical characteristics of the DUT, e.g., resistance of TSVs can be determined. Because the electrical properties (e.g., resistance) of an individual TSV are often too weak (small in value) to be detectable by the ATE, multiple TSVs may be chained together (e.g., in a daisy-chain configuration) to provide signal enhancement that facilitates measurement of the relevant electrical property.